Anxiety Happens
Anxiety Happens
By, Donna Daacke
What a year in the life of being human! We live in a time of potentially heightened anxiety, Could it be in part due to a constant stream of thought forming information provided by our devices and lack of autonomy? Anxiety and fear have always been with us as a matter of survival. What’s changed is the constant plugged in stream of provocative self conversational thoughts that keep us in flight or fight mode. When a bear is approaching you as dinner you need to have a system that works to your advantage. Or if you have a work deadline it can motivate you into action. But, when fear and anxiety become problematic or disruptive in your life it’s helpful to know that it doesn’t have to be this way.
The kind of anxiety that is generated by incessant thought is the kind of anxiety we are talking about today. Generally speaking, one way anxiety is generated is when we have an experience that recalls the energy from a previous scenario basically living somewhere in the past or somewhere out in the future. An example of this is “ I am afraid of getting COVID because in my mind I am recalling how awful it was when so and so had it.” “Gaining a new President scares me because what if the economy takes a dump?” You see both thoughts are somewhere else in time. There’s the possibility of either scenario while remaining completely inconclusive, and we’re giving precious energy to living in the fear or dread of another time and possible outcome instead of being in the energy of the present safe moment.
How do fear and anxiety rear their ugly heads in your life? You might answer by saying you feel it unpleasantly in your body or you have too much of it. But, stop for a moment and ask yourself if having anxiety is truly my problem? Ask yourself, what have I been really struggling with? How has it caused excessive stress, worry, and brain chatter maybe even impacted relationships and health? Shifting gears and becoming more aware through your self observer of its impact on your life can give you some direction for managing thought-provoking anxiety. From a very young age, we learn that we have to control things. Control works well when we are trying to get life’s necessary things done, like our jobs, family, and taking out the trash, or for getting you out of harm's way, but not so well when you apply control to your thoughts and emotions. What if you can become friendly and familiar with yourself like truly acquainted with the person you’re having these constant conversations with. The same person that says you can’t and that says if you do such and such then something may happen? Yes, think about the constant dialogue you are having with yourself. Your mind does not ever want to stop chattering, but there are no rules what so ever that state you have to always be listening. Just because your mind says it’s so doesn’t make it so. You might say that’s impossible, how do I not listen to what my mind is chattering on about?
What if when you find yourself starting to obsess on a fearful thought you tried shifting that focus by generating a replacement thought? It takes practice, maybe consider the meaning of practice (to perform an exercise repeatedly in order to improve one’s proficiency). Practicing forms new baseline habits. A simple replacement thought can go something like: There’s COVID everywhere, yep it’s just a matter of time before I get it, the numbers keep going up, all the businesses are closing omg, life will never be the same and on and on and so on. STOP see a light switch in your mind (because you’re the true boss of this conversation being created in the mind) and literally see yourself turning off a light switch that represents that conversation. You don’t have to have it, nobody is in there demanding you have it. You won’t go to jail if you turn off the minds light switch. A replacement thought can be any number of thoughts that better suit the intimate conversation that you are having with your self at any giving time. Replacing the fearful thought with an affirmative thought such as: “ I am afraid I won’t get this job and won’t be able to pay my bills.” Instead tell yourself a different story “ I am confident and capable and remain excited about my prospects because I know I my needs are being taken care of.” Use your self observer to practice using a replacement thought for letting go of fear, and bringing you back from the future freeing you, and giving you space for moving forward in a liberating way and for reclaiming your personal power. Remember the old saying (a replacement thought) of “ 80% of what we worry about never comes to be?! “ It’s true, so why not practice your choice of how you invest into your self conversations.
Practicing My Self Observer.
Most important is making the decision to engage in practices for becoming familiar with your Self Observer. You can’t get better at something if you don’t practice.
Noticing when your body is feeling the presence of fear/anxiety in the form of stress, body aches, etc. STOP, SHIFT, and SETTLE by bringing the focus onto your breathe turn off the light switch, or bring in replacement thought. Practice, practice, and practice. If your thought is on your breathing it can’t be on the fearful thought.
Create the opportunity in each day even if it’s five minutes to practice stillness. Just sit and when the thoughts come in and they will, give up attachment to them, letting go of the need to get it right, simply just practice being with them recognizing how they feel and seeing them as ticker tape scrolling by.
When you awake in the morning, before launching from the bed and locking into your cell phone. Bring three things to mind that you are grateful for. Fear and anxiety don’t live in the same frequency of gratitude. Start your day with a good dose of grateful energy.
With practice, you’ll start to notice how liberating turning off the switch and disengaging from the self chatter and constant conversation can be.
Flip a switch,
XO Donna
Live With Intention In 2021 with Celebrate You
https://www.mindfullyconnected.org/workshops
